The Biggest Little Decision

Barbara: The other day I was talking on the phone with my daughter (yes, I’m hanging in there) (she, btw, is flying high) about her course choices at university. She was contemplating how overwhelming and sometimes confusing the sheer volume was. And I found myself telling her that if she didn’t worry about opening herself up to new experiences, if she really paid attention, really listened, she might find herself learning something critical from even the most unlikely course, something utterly unexpected that could impact her whole life.

Later I told my husband about this discussion and he reminded me that he’d wanted me to watch the Steve Jobs video of his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford (you know, the genius behind Apple and Pixar and other such minor accomplishments.) So I did (and I’ve attached it at the bottom here), and within the first five minutes, Steve describes a calligraphy course he dropped into at college out of random curiosity and how that calligraphy course ended up informing the signature design esthetic at Apple (and, as a result, at all their competitors too).

I’ve made a lot of huge decisions in my life. I can feel the whoosh of that leap of faith in my gut. And those big leaps are great and important. But I started to count all the things that have come into my life thanks to seemingly random and innocuous events. And I realized just how many so-called little moments in my life turned into huge turning points.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll describe one—maybe my favourite. On a whim, out of creative boredom maybe, maybe just for the excuse of a girl’s night out, I went to a series of seminars with my dear friend, Angie. They were interesting and informative, but never ended up changing my life in and of themselves (there was no light bulb moment, no epiphanies, no major shifts) … until Angie and I found ourselves in conversation with a director looking for a project and a team to produce it. Angie happened to have a wonderful story idea that she threw into the mix—and a team was suddenly created, a film was soon born. Out of nowhere, out of nothing but chance and curiosity and, of course, creative flow. Now this film went on to be blessed with not just that one stroke of amazing synchronicity, but with many others as the cast, crew, and financing came together in probably record time for film world. Within less than a year we had wrapped production on a little indie film called Expecting that ended up touring the North American film festival circuit (and even won some prizes and accolades along the way), being made into a DVD, and still sometimes airing on Canadian television.

And the cherry on this cake of a story? That project is where I met and fell in love with Deb McGrath and Colin Mochrie. And while the film itself may be far from the buzz now, the memories and this friendship topped all my expectations. Not all our random conversations or crappy course choices will necessarily turn out to be that important, but I can say this: that random conversation certainly ended up changing my life. 

Deb: Barb, to remember that seed of a friendship, growing from such a time as 9/11 still amazes me.  Our friendship quite took me by surprise as you well know. I didn’t notice it at the first snap of the photo, but when I looked later at the picture, it was stupendous.





And thanks to Karen Frazier who just found the trailer for Expecting!